1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improved instructional video, and more specifically for students of wind instruments to warm-up.
2. Background Information
A wind instrument (technically an aerophone) is a musical instrument that contains some type of resonator (e.g., a tube) in which the sound is produced by vibrating air (usually inside the instrument). The instrument, or parts of the instrument, are shaped (often into a tube or set of tubes) so that the vibrations will be a particular length, and so a particular pitch, when the player blows into (or over) a mouthpiece, which is at the end of the resonator. The pitch is dependent on the length of the tube and by manual modifications of the effective length of the vibrating column of air. Wind instruments are made up of brass instruments and woodwind instruments. An instrument is considered brass or woodwind depending on how the player produces sound. In brass instruments, the player's lips vibrate, causing the air within the instrument to vibrate. In woodwind instruments the player either causes a reed to vibrate, which agitates the column of air (e.g., clarinet, oboe or duduk), blows against an edge or fipple (e.g., recorder), or blows across the edge of an open hole (e.g., flute).
The warm-up routine is one of the most important things that a student of any wind instrument can do. It is especially important to those desiring to become professionals, as the routine (daily) warm-up allows the student to concentrate on and refine the fundamentals of any wind instrument. The warm-up routine can begin with the playing of long or sustained tones. The playing of long tones as part of the routine warm up directly contributes to good and proper embouchure, good air stream and beautiful tone, as well as warming up one's embouchure muscles and to increase endurance.
To become technically proficient in playing any wind instrument, the production of tone must be done consciously, while breathing is done subconsciously. That subconscious action of breathing starts first as a conscious action in a warm-up (or some kind of focused developmental period each day).
The student must learn and decide when and how to inhale, and the rate of exhaling. The student must concentrate on every aspect of every relevant muscular activity in producing tone at every dynamic level throughout the entire playing range of the wind instrument. Another primary purpose of the warm up is to strengthen the muscles and tissues by which the embouchure is formed. Routine warm ups on sustained tones will increase stamina and physical response.
Despite all of the benefits from the current and various instructional or educational videos on musical instruments, there is no instructional or educational video that focuses on developing the student's fundamental habits of how he or she connects with their wind instrument, or one that gives him/her targets to emulate in the content, proportion, and sequence of warm-up and developmental exercises in developing fundamental skills in playing any wind instrument, or one that facilitates the conversion of short-term memories of form into long term memories that are deeply developed and therefore underlying the pathway toward mastery of one's instrumental playing.